The pessimism of ‘Avatar’

If you take the messages in “Avatar,” James Cameron’s latest big-budget sci-fi epic, seriously, it is easy to be critical of the film from many ideological directions.

Ross Douthat, a columnist for the New York Times, complained about the movie’s message of pantheism and the tendency of Hollywood to equate God with nature.

David Brooks, another columnist from the same paper, gave a more liberal critique of the film. He called the film a rehash of the “white messiah fable” in which young white adventurers end up leading noble savages against the corruption of modern civilization.

The main protagonist in “Avatar,” a crippled marine named Jake Sully, controls an alien body to get information on the indigenous people holding up a human mining operation. Once the aliens – tall blue humanoids known as the Na’vi – let Sully into their group, he becomes the most powerful Na’vi warrior in generations. This happens faster than Tom Cruise becomes the Last Samurai.

I don’t know how many people going to see “Avatar” really care about Cameron’s message. The hundreds of millions the film has already made at the box office probably have more to do with the movie’s special effects, which really are impressive.

But the fact that people are flocking to see the movie in droves, that “Avatar” picked up the best drama award at the Golden Globes (along with a directing nod for Cameron), and that sequels are in the works, suggests that people weren’t put off by the message.

That’s too bad.

It means we will get more derivative, and thus boring, movies.

But it also suggests that some people buy into the shallow pessimism about human nature that the movie is really selling.

The world of “Avatar” presents its audiences with a classic false choice. You can choose the technology and excessive overconsumption of modern society and get a human race forced to strip mine on an alien moon to save Earth. Or, you can abandon technology and seek some sort of communion with nature like the Na’vi.

Humans have never lived in such extremes.

Indigenous people haven’t lived the lives of the romantic caricatures seen on film. They have hardly been humble environmental stewards and have readily embraced innovations and technologies from the outside when it suited them.

And why shouldn’t technology and modern society be embraced? Both have helped people live longer and given us more choices about how we live our lives.

Modern society is much more sustainable than pessimists might have you think. Population growth seems to be leveling off and rich populations seem to place plenty of value in their environments – reforestation is the norm in the United States.

That doesn’t mean we don’t face real environmental problems like global warming, but history suggests we have the resources, namely human ingenuity, to avoid cataclysm while keeping our rising standards of living.

But “Avatar” is stuck idealizing a past that never existed instead of trying to deal with real problems in modern society.


E-mail: nrdixon@indiana.edu